Unrecognizable
by Icestorm4811
Summary: This is a sort of look into Dicks life and mind after the events of the season two finale in which Wally West dies. Nonsensical at times because anyone who just watched their best friend die shouldn't exactly be expected to be all there. I've fixed the formatting issues!


**Note: A lot of the ideas about coping mechanisms were heavily inspired on the comic book version of Nightwing. No prior reading of the comics will be necessary to understand. Also note that Dick may seem OOC and that this is in part of for foreinformentioned information and the fact that he is not in a mentally stable place. Thank you for reading, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Don't own it.**

**Warning: Depression, self hate, bad writing. **

**Word Count: 788 **

The soft trails on fingertips over sweaty flesh and the gentle kisses shared around mouth fills of hot cocoa were nothing the same and exactly alike. You wouldn't notice the thought following him, sitting at the edge of his bed as he ushers lies out of panicked lips, following behind during half hearted dates that would never mean anything, resting there in his throat as he tries and fails to say I love you.

They settled into a routine, Dick and that thought. He'd be trying so hard, so very hard, and then it would rise up again and choke him out, paralyze him. It didn't let him know anything beyond first dates and flings. Muttered words that were never meant thrust into his mind and tossed out just as quickly because they weren't real in the first place became a sort of sick and twisted normality for him. Despite himself, Dick never denied it. He never said he really did want a second date or the hot words thrust out of burning lips to be true. He didn't not when he really thought about it.

Sometimes he was certain he wasn't a real person. There was evidence against him of course, old tattered books from years of love, the coffee stain in the couch he had made, maybe even in memories.

Soaked into brains by passerbyers and people who thought they were something to him, memories burned and ached and he hated them. Despised then really. He never tries to change them though not really. He let them eat away at his flesh, some sort of parasite.

Some days he wished he could do more. He'd imagine himself getting the syllables out of his mouth and meaning them too. He has been told actions speak louder than words but not for him. None of the people threatening to become something to him could hold up against his last defense: silence, deafening and sure he spoke and said things but none of it meant anything so it was just as fine as quiet.

He imagined that when he finally snapped things wouldn't be much different. Maybe he had already broken the last straw long ago and forgot to realize it because he was sure people used to mean something to him, sex meant something more than a distraction, and surely it hadn't always been so hard to tell someone he loved them.

He was in this constant state of numbness, pale and deathly behind his mask of lies and reassurances. The loss of someone, still sat there, heavy in his mind. God, he was one to know it didn't go away with time. Too many people had been stolen away for him not to have a quarrel with death itself. It was eating away at him.

It had been two months, maybe three, time seemed trivial. Really, it could have been years, before he found himself looking into a mirror and not recognizing the face staring back at him. Just in the other room was a pretty brunette and too much alcohol. It seemed so easy to turn around and go back. He wanted to act like he hadn't noticed the circles under his eyes, the tremble to swollen lips and the way his chest heaved. He wanted to find the scar on his cheek from when he was younger but it was hidden under his 12 o'clock shadow and too much self hate to be seen. He stared long and hard before his fist was breaking the mirror, shattered pieces flying and a distant voice, concerned, not for him, but the possibility of not getting laid, called out. He didn't move until he couldn't bare to stand there any longer.

Dick knew he was spiraling out of control but he found it so very hard to care anymore. Hadn't he hurt enough people? It was hard to remember over the buzz of alcohol and the roar of some drug swirling through his head. This couldn't stop or he wouldn't make it past tomorrow but going on wouldn't help him much in life expectancy either. He didn't think about it though, instead, he pushed it under the metaphorical rug and took another swig of some cheap beer he gotten from God knows where.

Dick Grayson wasn't okay. He had gotten his best friend killed. He had watched it happen and was powerless to stop it. Things couldn't get better because people couldn't come back to life. It wasn't fair and he knew it, hated it, and accepted it as you'd accept a rule your parents gave you that you didn't like.

Dick wasn't sure if there was a living past tomorrow and he was too okay with it.


End file.
